The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

Chapter 2690 The Fall of the Fortress (Part 3)
2690. The Fall of the Fortress (Part 3)

Both the Kingdom of Dawn and the Galactic Empire are actively deploying troops, and the northern border of the galaxy is bustling once again.

On one hand, on the planet Bilbrin, Major General Luo Huacheng continued to consolidate his forward base, with fifteen Dawn of the Radiance-class industrial motherships under full-scale construction, producing a large amount of facilities and ammunition supplies, including fighter jets and frigates, using local materials.

At the same time, many Gauss defense platforms were built at this forward base, and more than a dozen asteroids that had been hollowed out due to mining were even modified into armed asteroids.

From the perspective of the Galactic Empire's intelligence department, Major General Luo Huacheng's actions were entirely preparations for a long-term operation, and did not seem like an attempt to launch an attack from here in the short term.

Furthermore, since Lieutenant General Dagon-Nils was arrested and handed over to a military court, his successor naturally dared not make the same mistake again. Therefore, the Imperial garrison on Bilblin also guarded its own lines and no longer intended to launch an offensive.

The Galactic Empire's Supreme Strategic Command's plan in this direction is naturally to create a long-term stalemate, allowing the Kingdom of Dawn and Dunn-Wessex to wear each other down in the North, while it continues to leverage its immense industrial power in the core region to further widen the gap in military strength between the two sides. This is what best serves the Empire's interests.

As for the forward base on Bilbrin, Oswald Teschke planned to launch an attack in three months. By then, with more Executor-class super star destroyers completed, he would be able to send the Sovereign super star destroyer and four Assertor-class dreadnoughts to Scipio. At that point, another overwhelming offensive would solve everything.

And at this time, the Kingdom of Dawn also increased its military operations against Dunne-Wessex.

In addition to making multiple attempts to destroy the super star destroyer Lyra, which landed on Doku, the Kingdom of Dawn has also increased its investment on Dantuin, a planet on the northern edge of the border.

Currently, on the ground battlefield of Dantuin, the Dawn Kingdom's army has reached 200,000 personnel! This includes a large number of armored units, with four confirmed armored divisions and more than 6000 light and heavy armored vehicles, mainly Scorpion tanks!

The Galactic Empire's ground forces on Dantuin have increased to over 50, including 15 Spadi clone soldiers, 35 regular Imperial stormtroopers, and approximately 40 local conscripts to make up the numbers.

It's important to understand that the total resident population of the entire planet Dantuin is only around 200 million, and even including the unregistered population, it would still not exceed 500 million. On this small planet with a diameter of just over 9800 kilometers, the combined forces deployed by both sides already amount to more than half of the planet's total population!
The two massive armies are engaged in fierce combat on the largest ground battlefield between the Dawn Kingdom and the Galactic Empire since the war resumed.

Although the Galactic Empire had a larger army, it was ultimately on the defensive and unable to concentrate all its forces for a counterattack.
This ground meat grinder was formed mainly because the main fleets of both sides were facing off along the Palin-Minor planet-Bilblin planet line, and neither side wanted to give up Dantuin planet, so they simply threw all their land forces over there, leaving only the most basic escort force for their fleets.

The escalating fighting on Dantoin further solidified Dunn-Wessex's judgment.

Now in the North, with Admiral Gerard Pereanne injured, there is no one left to persuade Dunn Wessex, who stubbornly remains behind his defensive lines on his planet Palin Minor.

However, at this time, the Geth fleet became active again, using the consumable Throne-class battlecruisers, designated T-34-1, to constantly harass the Galactic Empire's core defenses. Both the planets of Scipio and Palancy were harassed by these warships.

Although all of these warships were eventually destroyed, their extremely high speed, heavy armor, and incredibly powerful close-range particle cannons still inflicted considerable losses on the Imperial fleet each time.

This series of actions alerted Marshal Oswald Teschke, commander of the First Star System Army. He repeatedly warned Dunn Wessex to pay close attention to the defenses of Bilblin, as any lapse in vigilance could result in a lightning attack from the Dawn Kingdom fleet.

If possible, Oswald-Teschke would prefer to send reinforcements directly to Bilblin, but from a military perspective, Bilblin's hyperspace travel capabilities are pretty much limited, and even with more troops, logistical support might not be sufficient.

The political reason is that his and Dunn-Wessex's defense zones are different, and he cannot interfere with the other's military deployments. Unless you give the fleet to Dunn-Wessex.

However, in the following days, the Dawn Kingdom's Northern Fleet became active again in the direction of Palin-Minor.

On July 15th, the Titan warship Taotie suddenly acted alone, leading a fleet north to launch a probing attack on the planet Agamar. However, as the northern gateway to Palin-Minor, this planet was heavily fortified and garrisoned, so after a brief exchange of fire, the Titan warship Taotie temporarily withdrew.

On July 17, the first Assertion-class dreadnought to reinforce the North arrived on Palin-Minor. Dunn-Wessex was overjoyed and quickly deployed the warship to his core defense zone.

On July 18, the external anti-gravity engines of the Lila super star destroyer were installed. More than 3000 anti-gravity engines were installed on the entire warship, which is the only way for the 19000-meter-long super star destroyer to break free from the gravitational pull of planets and fly back into space.

However, the first test failed because more than 180 of the 3000 anti-gravity engines malfunctioned during activation, causing uneven stress on the warship. If the Galactic Empire's engineers hadn't reacted quickly, the Lyra super star destroyer might have suffered structural distortion.

The debugging process is expected to take another week.

Dunn Wessex was overjoyed at the arrival of the first Assertion-class dreadnought, so he didn't dwell on this minor setback. He told the Imperial military that as soon as the second Assertion-class arrived and the Lyra successfully returned to space, he would immediately launch an offensive against the Dawn Kingdom fleet on Od Mantel.

Upon hearing this, Imperial Marshal Oswald Teschke merely sneered and commented, "It's easier said than done. The question is, does he dare? I'm afraid that when it comes to actually giving the order to attack, he'll have to back down again."

On July 20, the Northern Fleet of the Dawn Kingdom began a three-day live-fire exercise on the planet Ode-Mantel, which involved a forced landing and occupation of a heavily guarded planet.

The Galactic Empire's intelligence agencies at all levels paid close attention to this exercise, with a large number of intelligence personnel trying every means to obtain specific details of the exercise in order to analyze who the hypothetical enemy was.

Is it the planet Palin-Minor, or the planet Bilblin?

On July 22nd, intelligence indicated that the Dawn Kingdom was assembling another fleet on Dawn Planet. This fleet was separate from the one assembled since the completion of the third ship of the Anchoron-class Titan, the Chaos. Unlike the fleet accompanying the Chaos, only a small portion of the warships in this fleet were newly built; the majority were transferred from other defense zones.

Therefore, the deployment of this fleet is also very crucial.

With the deployment of the Chaos to the planet Eriadu, the Dawn Kingdom's border defenses have become complete once again. Given their proactive offensive posture in the North, this newly assembled fleet is likely intended for offensive purposes!
So, where should we attack?
Countless eyes were fixed on the fleet.

Reinforcing the North was the most likely option, but at this time, the civil war of the Targ family suddenly broke out on the planet Drukenville. At this time, intelligence began to emerge that the Kingdom of Dawn might also take the opportunity to make moves in the South and cause trouble in the direction of Drukenville.

Because General Ling, the commander-in-chief of the Southern Territory, launched an attack on June 20th a month ago and directly occupied Naboo, the Dawn Kingdom had the possibility of achieving this goal. As more and more intelligence came in, the possibility was rapidly increasing. In the end, the Galactic Empire military had to begin to assess what would happen if the Dawn Kingdom intervened in the Targ family's civil war.

At least the Supreme Strategic Command concluded that Silas Targ, another key figure in the Targ family civil war, was in danger of defecting to the Kingdom of Dawn.

The situation has become increasingly complex, and the fleet assembled on Dawn Planet has become the biggest variable in this war.

Even so, the Galactic Empire's intelligence department still believed that it had ample time to react.

Because the Dawn Kingdom is building a stargate near the border, the only planet in the north is Macito. The stargate for Ode-Mantel will take at least another month or two to complete, while the stargate for Bilblin is just starting construction and will take at least a year to complete due to the limited navigation capabilities of the hyperspace passage.

Even after the stargate on Ode-Mantel is completed, it will still take at least three days for the fleet to travel from there to the point where it can attack the Galactic Empire's defenses.

In the Southern Territory, stargates only exist on the planet Eliadu and another planet, Fangdo. Fangdo is a salient, completely surrounded by the Empire's defenses, and unless the Dawn Kingdom intends to launch a full-scale attack, there is no possibility of surprise from this direction.

The stargate on the planet Eliadu has the same problem; it takes at least several days for a fleet to launch an offensive from there.

Finally, there's Losar in the east. It would be ideal if the Kingdom of Dawn could reinforce from there, as it would mean they pose no threat to the Empire's core defenses.

The accident occurred on July 23.

On the final day of the live-fire exercise, according to the exercise plan, the Titan warship "Divine Messenger" prepared to bombard an uninhabited asteroid as a target with a doomsday weapon. However, an accident suddenly occurred when the cannon was fired!

The doomsday weapon's power supply system appears to have malfunctioned, and an explosion suddenly occurred while it was firing! The explosion was so violent that even in optical images, a massive burst of fire, thousands of meters high, could be seen rising from approximately 3000 meters ahead of the Divine Messenger!
Immediately afterwards, this semi-public, deterrent-oriented live-fire exercise was halted, and the holographic network information was instantly cut off.

Spies and informants from all sides lost their sources of information and had to analyze the situation from other angles.

First, they detected a large number of engineering ships entering the planet Ode-Mantel, where hyperspace fluctuations began to become more intense, clearly indicating that the number of ships coming and going had increased three times compared to normal.

The holographic network could not be blocked indefinitely, as this would also sever the planet's external communication. Therefore, two days later, on July 25th, the holographic network was partially reopened, while one of the planet's satellites was already under strict blockade.

The Galactic Empire began using deep-space telescopes to survey the planet Od Mantel. They discovered an industrial structure in the geosynchronous orbit of the blocked satellite, which appeared to be an interstellar dock, measuring over 20,000 meters in size. Around the dock were numerous points of light; due to the limited resolution of the deep-space telescopes, these were determined to be the exhaust nozzles of spacecraft engines.

Therefore, a large number of spaceships must have gathered around this satellite. Moreover, the positions of these lights are random and disorganized, clearly not a well-organized fleet, so they are most likely engineering ships.

During this period, according to statistics from the Hyperspace Outpost, the Dawn Kingdom's airships were very active in the Northern Territory.

Based on a comprehensive assessment, the Galactic Empire's intelligence agency believes that the Titan warship "Divine Messenger" may indeed have been damaged, and the Kingdom of Dawn is undertaking a large-scale military adjustment to compensate for this loss.

Meanwhile, the fleet assembled on Dawn Planet still did not take any action.

This led the Imperial Intelligence Service to believe that this fleet might not actually be intended for the North.

On July 26, the Taotie Titan warship launched another attack on Agamar. This time, the firefight lasted longer. After exchanging long-range fire for over an hour, the Taotie Titan warship finally withdrew.

At this point, the sudden increase in hyperspace fluctuations on the planet Bilblin, due to the Dawn Kingdom's frequent actions, became quite normal.

As always, the Galactic Empire's intelligence agencies used the positions of the Titan warships to determine the direction of the Dawn Kingdom's main fleet. This was because it was quite obvious.

Now, it is certain that the four Titan warships of the Dawn Kingdom are: Xuanwu on Fangduo Planet, Hun Dun on Eliadu Planet, Taowu on Agamar Planet, and Shenshi on a satellite of Ode-Mantel Planet.

Therefore, keeping a close watch on the sealed-off satellite of Od-Mantel became a top priority for the Imperial Intelligence Agency. They mobilized significant resources to ascertain the extent of the damage to the Titan warship, the Divine Messenger.

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